Stealth FUD?
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Bob_Robertson Jul 28, 2009 1:19 PM EDT |
A binary built to run on Linux aught to run on all Linux distributions. Linux doesn't suffer from the same level of fragmentation that UNIX did. I may agree that Google would do best for itself to just put a new face on an established distribution, but I don't see any reason to run screaming through the streets because of their decision. So I have to wonder, why the "fragmentation" argument again? Who gains from this? |
| number6x Jul 28, 2009 1:51 PM EDT |
I think Google is trying to avoid head to head competition with other OS's. Their focus will be the Apps delivered in their browser. They are replacing X with their own Windowing environment that will deliver just what they need. It will be a special purpose distro designed to support one application, chrome. It will be adapted by the Open source community to do other things, but Google is not seeking a generalized, jack of all trades type OS. Google will have support for chrome browser, V8 (their Javascript engine), Java (maybe as soome kind of add on but more than likely it will be through chrome browser), .net (maybe as soome kind of add on but more than likely it will be through chrome browser). A limited set of hardware support for whatever partners will make Chrome OS devices what else? |
| tuxchick Jul 28, 2009 2:01 PM EDT |
Bob, this is a very FUD-dy article that makes all these sweeping claims with nothing to support them, like:Quoting: Google's revelation that it will create its own operating system will bring just one reaction from operating system enthusiasts worldwide. "Not another Linux distribution," they'll cry. Um, no, it won't. Quoting: Google's decision to create its own Linux distribution and splinter the Linux community decisively once again can only be seen as foolhardy and self-obsessive Then it goes to claim that the smart move would have been to partner with Ubuntu. Why, when Google has some of the top developer talent anywhere, and their own vision of what they want to create? The whole idea of FOSS is to have the source code to take and mold however you like. As long as Google doesn't play nasty licensing games and keeps ChromeOS open, anything cool they release is available to everyone. That's how it works, and that's why FOSS is so strong. There are much larger differences between the different Unixes than there are between the various Linuxes. If you know the basics of Debian and Red Hat, you know most Linuxes. If you know Gnome or KDE, then you know Gnome or KDE on any distro. People keep dragging out that tired old "Look what Unix did to itself and now Linux too" argument without understanding how different Unix and Linux are. It would have been more honest for the author to say "I don't like this" instead of claiming everyone else feels the same way. |
| helios Jul 28, 2009 6:48 PM EDT |
Let me explain to this author what is going to happen. See he wrote this as a defensive piece...it's the future the way he wants the future to be. Now let me tell you how it will really be...and sorry, I do specialize in rude awakenings. Your money guy has had years to go mainstream. Instead, he's listened to the hippie mindset around him and been talked into the power of guerrilla marketing...the word of mouth...community will build community... Well, it has done some good, but the average Windows user doesn't even know you exist. Trust me, I talk to dozens every week. As good as you have think you have done...just wait...it's gonna look pathetic compared to 30 days of google radio, television and print ads. "Mommy, what's Ubuntu...?" "Well honey, a long time ago....." h |
| cabreh Jul 29, 2009 4:14 AM EDT |
@helios I agree with you. There are a lot of "users" out there who will be quite willing to give all their data to some corporation out in the cloud. They'll even be willing to pay those corporations to take their data, steal the ownership, mine it for information and possibly even sell it on to others. Or at the least have it stolen through some hack-in. But for me personally, outside of my e-mail, I will keep my data to myself. So something (maybe not Ubuntu) will survive. Even if it's only on my computer. |
| Sander_Marechal Jul 29, 2009 4:31 AM EDT |
Why not keep your e-mail to yourself as well? It's not that hard to do. |
| cabreh Jul 29, 2009 12:58 PM EDT |
@Sander I was keeping my e-mail on my own server. But to get better service I switched providers and lost my fixed IP. I know I can make my server work all the same, but I also came to the realization as I changed e-mail addresses once again I just want to leave it as a gmail account. Then even when I move back to Canada from Europe it still remains the same. Plus using several computers I run gmail as imap to access it from anywhere. |
| Bob_Robertson Jul 29, 2009 1:17 PM EDT |
> Plus using several computers I run gmail as imap to access it from anywhere. That's one of the good things about horizontal diversification: Clients who want one particular service, but not another, can still remain customers. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jul 29, 2009 7:19 PM EDT |
Many of my colleagues pipe their company e-mail through Gmail and access it that way. I wanted more control over my e-mail but wasn't quite ready to use Gmail for that purpose, so I started POP-ing it down and using Thunderbird to read/reply/manage it. That's been working out pretty well. I configured Thunderbird to leave the last two weeks' worth of mail on the server, so I can use my company's Web-mail interface for recent mail if I'm not on the machine with the Thunderbird install. I know one guy who pipes the e-mail through Gmail but also POPs down a copy. That could be a way to go. Even though I'm writing quite a bit about Google Docs (and Chrome OS and other Google stuff) lately, I do grant that there are privacy and marketing issues, and that another vendor who's not Google or Microsoft might be a better choice for either cloud applications or storage. |
| Sander_Marechal Jul 29, 2009 7:25 PM EDT |
Quoting:as I changed e-mail addresses once again I just want to leave it as a gmail account. Get your own domain name. It's only $4-$7 a year. Use DynDNS or something similar to point it to your dynamic IP address. Pick any old box and install exim + fetchmail + dovecot imap and you have your own imap server with your own e-mail address. There are several great webmail packages you could install as well, but many people I know simply run a commandline imap client like Pine in an SSH shell. Far more secure :-) |
| gus3 Jul 29, 2009 7:34 PM EDT |
WRT email practices: I empty the POP account at the end of the month, downloading to Alpine (formerly Pine). I use the web interface for all sending, but I'm willing to download into Thunderbird to view as the sender's program might expect (esp. with inline images involved). And I keep all my non-spam messages, going back 8 years so far. It's amazing how many times I've dug through the archives to find some obscure thing. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jul 29, 2009 7:43 PM EDT |
Quoting:Get your own domain name. It's only $4-$7 a year. Use DynDNS or something similar to point it to your dynamic IP address. Pick any old box and install exim + fetchmail + dovecot imap and you have your own imap server with your own e-mail address. There are several great webmail packages you could install as well, but many people I know simply run a commandline imap client like Pine in an SSH shell. Far more secure :-) Sander, that's good advice. I'm doing something similar but different: I've started using the mail server for my Hostgator account. I have an e-mail account on my own domain, and I access it via IMAP in Thunderbird. Re: Pine ... I tried to make Mutt work years ago, but it was just too much trouble. I'm way, way not worthy for such a geekish pursuit (i.e. crafting a .muttrc that does what I need it to do, then figuring out procmail, fetchmail, etc.) |
| Sander_Marechal Jul 29, 2009 7:51 PM EDT |
Using your own imap server which uses maildir (like dovecot) has a few perks. Easy backup with rsync (old messages never change, so fast backups) and tools like Tracker can index them. Also: $ cd Maildir $ grep -r -C 5 "foo" * :-) |
| Steven_Rosenber Jul 29, 2009 7:57 PM EDT |
One of the biggest drawbacks of POP mail in Thunderbird is that it takes forever to rsync. |
| Sander_Marechal Jul 29, 2009 8:00 PM EDT |
Yep, that's the downside of mbox for mail storage. Every new mail causes the mbox to change so you need to rsync the entire file again. And they can get big (over 1 GB for my largest at the moment. That's why I now have Cat6 and Gigabit network at home). |
| Steven_Rosenber Jul 29, 2009 8:04 PM EDT |
I'm running two rsync scripts, one for Thunderbird and the other for ... everything else. It's the only way to maintain whatever sanity I have left. |
| tracyanne Jul 29, 2009 8:25 PM EDT |
Quoting:Get your own domain name. It's only $4-$7 a year. what Sander said |
| gus3 Jul 29, 2009 8:32 PM EDT |
How very interesting. I use "rsync -zavvP --delete" to keep my Slackware repositories current. One of the files is the MANIFEST.bz2, sorted and compressed. Somehow, it can tell that only part of the MANIFEST.bz2 file needs to be transferred. That is, if "a/coreutils-i486*.txz" is updated, most of MANIFEST.bz2 is re-downloaded, because "a/" is the first directory in the list. However, if "xap/mozilla-firefox-i486*.txz", then MANIFEST.bz2 gets a very fast update, because the "xap/" files are near the end of the list. I'll admit, I don't know how the mbox format works. For my Alpine archives, I separate by month/year, and sent vs. received. It keeps the folders broken down into manageable chunks. @Steven: Have you compressed your Thunderbird folders? |
| azerthoth Jul 29, 2009 8:56 PM EDT |
For the dynamic option there are autoupdaters for you as well, I use ddclient. dyndns.com has an auto gen for you configuration file for it as well, so all you have to do is drop it in and set it as a system service on your outward facing server (if you have dedicated one to that function). |
| techiem2 Jul 29, 2009 11:17 PM EDT |
I use the free service at no-ip.com to point to my in-home server (the commercial service has more features, but I'm cheap). No registered domain needed if you don't want. |
| cabreh Jul 30, 2009 2:43 AM EDT |
Well, I was also looking at this from a physical advantage point as well. I have to travel at times for extended periods. Either for my work or for vacations and such. If my mail server fails (or the router which happened to me once) my mail can be lost. If a provider is holding my mail for me I don't have to worry about that. Yes, I could still use a mail server and just fetch my mail from the provider, but I don't see much advantage right now to increasing my work environment at home. I have enough at work. :) Maybe when I retire in a few years. Besides, if I tried to tell the wife we were changing her mail system again I think I'd be retired early. |
| Sander_Marechal Jul 30, 2009 4:36 AM EDT |
Quoting:Somehow, it can tell that only part of the MANIFEST.bz2 file needs to be transferred. rsync does delta transers. That is, it sends only the diffs between files. When you use rsync between local filesystems then it doesn't do this because figuring out the delta usually takes longer than transferring the entire file on a local filesystem. For you, the problem is the bzip2 compression. When a file is tacked onto the end, the file doesn't change much. When a file is added to the beginning then the compression causes almost the entire file to change. I bet your transfers would be much faster when your manifest was uncompressed. As for Thunderbird's mbox, I have no idea why the entire file needs to be transferred. Mbox should only tack stuff on at the end, and rsync should be able to send just the difference but for some reason it doesn't do that. Perhaps the file size is too big for rsync to diff properly, or Mozilla's mboxrd file format is just different enough from standard mbox. |
| gus3 Jul 30, 2009 10:13 AM EDT |
Well, since I'm no longer using a networked setup, I just rsync my /home/gus3 to a partition on a different drive. A full transfer (backup or recovery) takes about 45 minutes, and both partitions are encrypted. No network involved, so compression would just slow things down unnecessarily. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jul 30, 2009 5:36 PM EDT |
Does rsync automatically transfer only the changed part of a file, or do you have to do that in a switch with the command? |
| Sander_Marechal Jul 30, 2009 6:17 PM EDT |
Steven, it should do that automatically. |
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